


The Baker Street Park Irregulars

by AsheRhyder



Series: Baker Street Park Irregulars [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:38:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsheRhyder/pseuds/AsheRhyder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg is a good boy. This in mind, there is absolutely no explanation for how he ends up in charge of a group of teen vigilantes who take over Baker Street Park.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baker Street Park Irregulars

0\. Greg is Good.  
    Greg is a good boy: he minds his parents (as much as any boy does), does his homework (most of the time), and is well-liked by almost everyone at school except Tobias (who most people will admit is a bit of a prat). He scraps with his brothers (there are three of them; it’s almost mandatory), but there’s no real animosity between them and they always quit before their mum raises her voice. The one time any of them drew blood (Danny, on Greg when Greg’s socked foot slid out from under him and he caught his head on the nightstand), they instantly fell to concern and, despite later protests to the contrary, cuddles.   
    This in mind, there is absolutely no explanation for how or why Greg ends up in charge of a group of teen vigilantes who take over Baker Street Park. 

  
1\. Mycroft is First.   
    Mycroft is, technically, an accident - Greg’s normal routine of straight home from school is delayed by an impromptu football game due to Sally’s father getting her a new ball to make up for missing her birthday. Sally is a wicked striker, and rounds up nearly half their class to break in the new ball. When Greg finally stumbles homeward, he has mud on his trousers (a spectacular slide, if he does say so himself), a scrape across his knuckles (Anderson stepped on him after the slide), and blood in the corner of his mouth (Sally caught him with an elbow. She said she was sorry, but she was still laughing from winning, so she owes him dessert for the next week for not telling. He doesn’t realize he missed a spot).   
    Greg takes a shortcut and ends up walking in on two Fourth Years cornering a boy in the posh uniform of another school. Greg’s temper flares, burning hotter because the rest of the day was so good. It’s not fair, and it’s not right, and he’s not about to let this happen in front of him. He draws himself up to his full height, thankful that although his family doesn’t get very tall, they do get to average height quite early.   
    “Oi!” He bellows, and all eyes snap to him. He knows he looks a fright - he’s counting on it - as he crosses his arms and does his best to loom intimidatingly. “Shove off.”   
    One of the bullies looks like they’re going to object, but Greg smiles, and what is normally a boyish grin is transformed into a macabre parody by the virtue of the blood still staining his mouth. The bullies bolt, leaving Greg with their prey.   
    The second they are out of sight, Greg nearly collapses from relief. In truth, he hadn’t expected that to work, but it was more a reaction than a plan anyway.   
    “You all right?” He asks the other boy, who nods weakly.   
    “Thank you very much,” he says, and his accent makes Greg keenly aware of the dirt on his hand-me-downs.   
    “Cheers,” he smiles anyway and starts to head home, but the other boy calls out to him.   
    “Go east,” he says, which is odd enough for Greg to pause and turn around again. The boy must think he doesn’t understand because he points insistently eastward. Greg is nothing if not stubborn.   
    “East is the long way,” he says. “I’m already late. I’ll get in trouble.”   
    “Please,” says the redheaded boy, looking so pale he might very well be a ghost. “It’s important.”   
    “Why?” Greg demands, but the other boy just shakes his head and runs off. East, Greg notices. He feels a bit like he walked into one of his mum’s fairy stories from when he was young, but he always wanted to be a hero, and heroes listen to the advice of their mysterious benefactors. Greg sighs and turns eastward, already resigning himself to a row about tardiness.   
      
    It’s nearly dark when he gets home, but his mum is so relieved she can’t do more than hold on to him and cry. Apparently, there was some gang bust on the west side of the park, and some kids got hurt in the crossfire. She’s so happy that he’s only roughed up from a football game that she completely forgets to scold him about the mud.  
    Greg thinks of the pale boy, shaken and grateful, and feels a bit the same.   
  
    He finds the boy again the next day, though it means skipping out on another match in order to hunt the various footpaths through the park. The west end of Baker Street Park is still taped off, but Greg manages to narrow down the choices to a few possibilities that lead to the better part of town based on the boy’s clothes and accent. The redheaded boy looks pleasantly surprised to see him, which causes Greg to grin.   
    “Thanks for yesterday,” he says by way of greeting. “That could have been bad.”   
    “One good turn and such.” The boy says cautiously.   
    “I’m Greg.” Greg offers his hand the way he remembers seeing his Dad do at parties. It makes the other boys’ smile widen a fraction as he shakes it.   
    “Mycroft.” The smile hesitates, hinging on the response.   
    “Never heard that one before.” Greg blinks, but shrugs it off. It’s no worse than some of the names his French cousins have. Mycroft’s smile unfolds. “So tell me, how’d you know about what was happening yesterday?”   
    Mycroft’s smile turns to a smirk.   
    “Can’t you tell?”   
      
    And they walk down the path, Greg positing theories and Mycroft shooting them down with more gentility than a suggestion of “aliens” deserved.   
  
  
2\. Sally is Second.   
    Sally Donovan wonders why Greg doesn’t join them for games anymore, so one afternoon she follows him to Baker Street Park. He meets up with a boy in a fancy school uniform at the south gate, and they walk into the park together. The posh boy - a ginger - reads something on his phone, but Greg stays alert. Sally thinks he looks angry and wonders why. She gets closer so she can eavesdrop.   
    “You really don’t have to keep doing this,” the redhead says, somewhat coolly.   
    “Until your mum stops making you walk home, yeah, I do.” Greg sounds determined.   
    “She says it’s good exercise.” The other boy remarks bitterly, in the tone of someone who has heard that particular platitude too frequently.   
    “So’s boxing. She may as well sign you up, at this rate.”   
    “It’s not that--”   
    And then three Year Fours jump out and tackle Greg and the Posh Kid, howling bloody murder about revenge.   
    Sally doesn’t even hesitate to wade in, sharp elbows and knees joining Greg’s fists and the Posh Kid’s ridiculous pocket umbrella. The changing tide leaves Greg’s attackers no advantage, and they run as soon as they realize it.   
    Sally shouts something after them that would get her mouth washed out with soap. Greg looks torn between gratefulness for her intervention and embarrassment for being caught, but Posh Kid is unflappable and turns to her with a smile she knows he doesn’t quite mean.   
    It turns out that the redhead - Mycroft - treats Greg to tea as thanks for running off the bullies that Mycroft’s pride keeps him from reporting.   
    “A gentleman,” he says with the resignation of rote, “endeavors to solve his own problems.” Which both Sally and Greg think is Grown Up Speak for “don’t bother me”, and is generally just the kind of thing that sets Greg off.   
    Sally’s a bit more resilient to the indifference of the world - she gets sarcastic and bitter while Greg just gets angry. It’s something she admires about him, that he keeps expecting better of the world. She doesn’t know it yet, not in those words, anyway.   
    Sally doesn’t mind following Greg as he escorts Mycroft home, not when Mycroft has the best biscuits. 

  
3\. Anderson is Next.  
    This is what you need to know about Daniel Anderson:  
        a.) There are three Daniels in his class, so everyone calls him Anderson instead.   
        b.) He is the fifth of seven children. Consequently,   
        c.) he never gets anything new, and   
        d.) people tend to over look him because he is  
            1.) quiet, and   
            2.) just strange enough to be vaguely off-putting. It comes from having to make your own entertainment in a house full of nosy brothers and sisters who don’t actually want anything to do with you, but don’t want you to have any fun that they could be having either. Siblings.   
    Therefore,   
        e.) he is thrilled when Greg Lestrade picks him for the team on the second go round. (Sally is his first pick, but that’s because Sally is very nearly Greg’s best friend, and also, she might kick his arse if he doesn’t.) They lose the game, but Greg doesn’t blame him, and he keeps calling Anderson second. To Anderson, this is very nearly the best thing ever.   
        f.) Sally gives him the dinosaur calendar for his birthday that year. She saved up the money herself. (Okay, Greg chipped in a little, but only because he didn’t want to get Anderson something lame and cheap and didn’t know what else to do. Sally let him sign the card, too.)  
        g.) It’s brand new, glossy pictures and everything, and it was bought with him in mind. Just for him. It’s the first present he can remember that isn’t a hand-me-down.  
        i.) This pretty much earns his childish but undying loyalty, so when Greg and Sally stop waiting around for after school football matches and instead start sweeping Baker Street Park for bullies,   
        j.) Anderson is right behind them.   
        k.) Daniel Anderson has a lot of reasons to be angry at the world.   
        l.) He takes them out on people who would pick on kids like him.   
        m.) He still doesn’t like Mycroft’s younger brother, though. 

  
4\. Mrs. Hudson Doesn’t Know.   
    At least, they don’t think she does. Mrs. Hudson is the much-beloved Home and Consumer Science teacher who still calls her class Home Ec, and everyone ends up in her pleasant classroom smelling of cinnamon and cloves at some time or another. She teaches Gregory how to treat the mud stains on his jeans and tuts about the ones that turn out to be blood. She teaches Sally how to choose a sensible pair of heels and Anderson how to fix the various things he accidentally breaks after watching Sally in those heels. She never has Mycroft, who doesn’t go to their school, but she meets him about six months after the others have left her class. She’s seen the proud, lonely young man who watches the rest of the Baker Street Park Irregulars and never realizes he’s part of the gang too.   
    She manages to immediately and simultaneously alienate and endear herself to him by offering him cake.   
    “You’re so skinny,” she sighs when he politely but icily declines. It’s quite possibly the first time anyone has said those words to him, despite his recent efforts since meeting Greg. “You’ll waste away.”   
    Greg, who hangs around the sidelines and grins like a wolf when Mycroft isn’t looking, just loops an arm over the redhead’s shoulders and promises to make sure that doesn’t happen. He’s Mycroft’s security detail, after all.   
    Mrs. Hudson thinks it’s a joke - at least, they hope she does. She gives them a wink, though, and offers her classroom if they ever need a safe hideaway. 

  
5\. Sherlock is Too Young.   
    Sherlock spends five years thinking his older brother is God Almighty. Better than God, really, because he can see and hear Mycroft and has absolute, current, and immediate proof of how awesome his brother is. Then Mycroft starts spending all his free time with Greg, and Sherlock spends ten whole minutes despising Greg Lestrade with every fiber of his being. This epic loathing would have spawned a life-long nemesis if two things didn’t happen at the end of those ten minutes: one, Greg gets punched in the face breaking up a fight between three Year Ones, and two, Greg manages to extract Johnny Watson from beneath said Year Ones.   
    Sherlock considers a bloody nose to be suitable penance, especially since Johnny has just surpassed Mycroft on the list of Sherlock’s favorite people. Mycroft notices the switch, and has to resign himself to being replaced by a truly tiny blond who practically swims in an oversized jumper.   
    By the time Sherlock and Johnny are old enough to both know what it is that Greg and his friends do with their afternoons, the Baker Street Park Irregulars have firmly established their territory. There is very little that Greg’s intimidating black leather jacket and pugnacious scowl cannot fix that cannot be handled in an infinitely neater way by Mycroft’s careful, anonymous phone calls to the police, and the park has become a second home to the Irregulars. It swallows them whole, protecting them from those who would do them harm. And, because Sherlock is bloody nosy and Johnny won’t leave him to his own devices for more than a day, soon it swallows them, too.   
    Greg says Sherlock is too young, that he should take Johnny and go home and play, but Sherlock likes the park. Interesting things happen there. There are interesting people. (This is a lie he tells Greg and Mycroft; most of the people are boring, but they could be interesting. That was the point. You never _knew_ until you got there.) Also, Johnny gets kind of twitchy when people talk about sending him home.   
    Mycroft agrees with Greg, and that’s the nail in the coffin, as far as Sherlock is concerned. He’s never leaving the park, not in a hundred million billion years. Except maybe for tea, because Johnny likes tea and biscuits and its hard to get those in the park. Not impossible, not for Sherlock, but they have better tea at home. Johnny should have better tea.   
    Johnny, Sherlock comes to decide, should have a lot of things he doesn’t. 

  
6\. Johnny is Last.   
    Not because they don’t want Johnny. They don’t, but in the nicest way possible. They resist pulling Johnny because they want something better for him, and it’s only later that they realize they - with all their hang-ups and screw-ups and 'do-not-repeat-this-word-in-front-of-the-kids'-ups - are better for him than the alternative. The Baker Street Irregulars don’t see themselves as thugs or even really delinquents (Mycroft has some of the highest marks in the country, and even Anderson regularly makes honor roll), but they don’t delude themselves into thinking they aren’t a gang. Mycroft and Greg have gone over this before, had the row, and settled it.   
    Somehow, though, their gang of organized resistance is better for Johnny than his own house. Sally thinks it’s because they keep bigger kids from picking on him. Anderson never says so, but he thinks its because they notice him. Sherlock and Mycroft share in the knowledge of their vast superiority to Johnny’s parents, who are divorced alcoholics and don’t even notice where their boy goes anymore.   
    Greg, who never intended to start a gang, has the feeling it has something to do with caring. While Mycroft can say that it’s not an advantage, all Greg has to do is look at their park - their happy, clean, safe-for-kids-to-play-in park - to know that he won anyway.   
  
  
END.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Show belongs to Moffat and Gatiss. Here there be highly unprofessional amateur fiction. Vaguely beta’d, not-Britpicked because the author doesn’t know any Brits.


End file.
